Black Feminism, Womanism and the Politics of Women of Colour in Europe

A recurring theme of our events in Edinburgh in 2016 and Amsterdam in 2017 is Black feminist/Afrofeminist/Womanist history and memory. By bringing together a wide range of cis and trans* women of colour and non-binary folks from across Europe, how do we ensure that we honour and remember trailblazing struggles of those who came before us? By building this Black feminist space, who is tacitly included and excluded? How do we learn from our past in order to take effective action in the present and future? How do we build and sustain meaningful intergenerational debates about Black feminism?

To that end, the theme of this year’s event is about making visible the long history of Black feminist/Afrofeminist/Womanist activism in Europe. Having this symposium in Berlin is fortuitous because the city served as a backdrop for the pioneering transnational, inter-generational solidarity work of Audre Lorde, May Ayim, Ika Hügel-Marschall, Katharina Oguntoye and a network of Afro-German feminists in the 1980s and 1990s. When we seek to remember Black feminist resistance, we should be expansive in our understandings of what activism looks like. Lorde (1977) famously described living in the United States as surviving in the ‘mouth of a dragon’; so too is everyday life for many cis and trans* women of colour and non-binary folks of colour in Europe. Thus to name Black feminist resistance means that we must look beyond traditional forms of activism in the shape of demonstrations and pickets and also examine the everyday protests of existence and survival.

We are delighted to open the event in conversation with with vetern Afro-German activist and writer Katharina Oguntoye. Our keynote speaker is the Afrofeminist artist and writer, Noah Sow.

Check out our conference programme here